A comprehensive description of multiple observables in heavy-ion collisions at SPS

Abstract

Combining and expanding on work from previous publications, a model for the evolution of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at the CERN SPS for 158 AGeV beam energy is presented. Based on the assumption of thermalization and a parametrization of the space-time expansion of the produced matter, this model is able to describe a large set of observables including hadronic momentum spectra, correlations and abundancies, the emission of real photons, dilepton radiation and the suppression pattern of charmonia. Each of these obervables provides unique capabilities to study the reaction dynamics and taken together they form a strong and consistent picture of the evolving system. Based on the emission of hard photons, we argue that a strongly interacting, hot and dense system with temperatures above 250 MeV has to be created early in the reaction. Such a system is bound to be different from hadronic matter and likely to be a quark-gluon plasma, and we find that this assumption is in line with the subsequent evolution of the system that is reflected in other observables.

21 pages, 10 figures, submitted to J. Phys. G

References in corpus (6)

• Critical point of QCD at finite T and μ, lattice results for physical quark masses
• Hadron Resonance Mass Spectrum and Lattice QCD Thermodynamics
• Quasiparticle Description of Hot QCD at Finite Quark Chemical Potential
• Emission of thermal photons and the equilibration time in Heavy-Ion collisions
• Why a long-lived fireball can be compatible with HBT measurements
• Dilepton emission rates from hot hadronic matter

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Mach cones in an evolving medium
• Low Mass Dimuons Produced in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions
• Dimuon transverse momentum spectra as a tool to characterize the emission region in heavy-ion collisions
• Hadronic signals of deconfinement at RHIC
• Through the blackness -- high p_T hadrons probing the central region of 200 AGeV Au-Au collisions
• Three-particle azimuthal correlations and Mach shocks
• Flow dependence of high $p_T$ parton energy loss in heavy-ion collisions
• Non-perturbative finite $T$ broadening of the $\rho$ meson and dilepton emission in heavy ion-collisions
• Photonic measurements of the longitudinal expansion dynamics in Heavy-Ion collisions
• Radial Flow from Electromagnetic Probes and Signal of Quark Gluon Plasma
• Particle spectra and hydro-inspired models
• What does the rho-meson do? In-medium mass shift scenarios versus hadronic model calculations
• Signatures of Mach Shocks at RHIC
• Hadron momentum spectra from analytical solutions of relativistic hydrodynamics